DIOGENES: In Search Of An Honest Politician!

DIOGENES invites you to pull up a chair on this rainy day and read
posts from around the world.
The writing may lean to the right...but that's the way Diogenes wants it!
You may leave your opinion,
but Diogenes rarely changes his! WELCOME!

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

A Selfie-Taking, Hashtagging Teenage Administration

Wall Street Journal ^ | May 12, 2014 | ELIOT A. COHEN
...Why does the Economist magazine put a tethered eagle on its cover, with the plaintive question, "What would America fight for?" Why do Washington Post columnists sympathetic to the administration write pieces like one last week headlined, "Obama tends to create his own foreign policy headaches"? Clues may be found in the president's selfie with the attractive Danish prime minister at the memorial service for Nelson Mandela in December; in State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki in March cheerily holding up a sign with the Twitter TWTR +0.44% hashtag #UnitedForUkraine while giving a thumbs up; or Michelle Obama looking glum last week, holding up another Twitter sign: #BringBackOurGirls. It can be found in the president's petulance in recently saying that if you do not support his (in)action in Ukraine you must want to go to war with Russia—when there are plenty of potentially effective steps available that stop well short of violence. It can be heard in the former NSC spokesman, Thomas Vietor, responding on May 1 to a question on Fox News about the deaths of an American ambassador and three other Americans with the line, "Dude, this was like two years ago."

This Is The End: More businesses in America are being destroyed than created!

This is the end My only friend, the end Of our elaborate plans, the end Of everything that stands, the end No safety or surprise, the end—The Doors You know it’s bad when I begin by quoting The Doors, but “The End” has been stuck in my head since I started collecting stories for this week’s column.The first was Erik Sherman’s Inc. writeup[1] of a recent Brookings Institution report on the decline of American entrepreneurship. According to Brookings, “entrepreneurship has reached at least a three-decade low across virtually all of the country.” Three decades also happens to be as long as Brookings has been tracking such things. Sherman adds:

For decades, the entrance of firms outpaced their exit, meaning a net increase in new businesses. The authors see that–reasonably, it seems–as a proxy to an inclination toward entrepreneurism. But since at least 1978, the lines have converged, albeit slowly. In 2008, they reached a watershed moment and crossed.

The math is simple: More firms leaving than arriving means a shrinking percentage of business is being controlled by entrepreneurs. And notice that the exits were relatively steady. It is the creation of new firms that has sagged. The trend line has never been good, but it accelerated sharply downward in 2010, the year Obamacare was signed into law. While that ought to be the big economic story of the week, as Jean Card writes for US News & World Report[2], “Riddle me this:”

A Google News search for this week’s alarming study from the Brookings Institution on the decline of business dynamism in the U.S. yields a mere half-dozen results, making it like the proverbial tree falling in the forest. The study is a big deal. It should make a huge amount of noise. Its economic implications are staggering. But no one appears to be listening.

Maybe that’s because the mainstream media was busy touting the ACA’s reputed successes. A Google News search for “Obamacare Success”[3] yields thousands of results from just the last week. The “success” being touted was President Obama’s claim that eight million Americans had signed up for insurance on the various federal and state exchanges, despite earlier claims that the law would cover nearly twice that many. Of course, the original rationale for Obamacare was that 46 million Americans lacked health insurance — but anything can be construed as a success provided you have a compliant media helping to move the goalposts ever closer.But as we’ll explore right after the page break, we’re just getting started.Sean Hackbarth[4] reported late last week at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that we could suffer the loss of up to a quarter of a million jobs, due to the ACA’s Health Insurance Tax:

Small businesses should brace for big health plan premium increases. Some are already seeing this happen. Rod Winter, a Wisconsin business owner told the Wall Street Journal:

Our 440-employee business just received its initial premium from United Healthcare for our July 1 renewal. The renewal premium represents a 29% increase over the current premium. UHC indicated that our premiums are going up 11% to bring our deductibles and out of pocket maximums in line with the provisions of the ACA. In other words, without the ACA, our premiums would be going up approximately 18%, not 29%.

New research finds that the added costs of one of Obamacare’s taxes will be brutal on employment.

More than half the expected job losses will come from small business — the once-vibrant heart of American entrepreneurship. Big business doesn’t exactly have it easy, either. General Electric, UPS, Dollar General, and Cognizant[5] all reported lower-than-expected earnings last quarter, in part due to the “Affordable” Care Act. That means fewer opportunities for people looking to move up the corporate ladder, and fewer opportunities for entrepreneurs looking to build their own ladders, so to speak. The sound you hear is millions of doors being slammed shut by those who already have theirs — which is something you should keep in mind the next time you hear President Obama or any Democrat complaining about income inequality.Also keep this in mind[6], courtesy of Jay Cost at the Weekly Standard:

Liberals claim the law is “working.” This omits the dozens of provisions that the president has suspended or delayed because they were not working—for budgetary or political reasons. The suspended or postponed provisions include the mandate that businesses cover full-time employees, the cancellation of noncompliant plans, and cuts to Medicare Advantage.

One can assume that, absent a Republican in the White House come 2017, the ACA’s suspended strictures will eventually come into force, denying us even more jobs and lost opportunities to live out our own American dreams.As I said, we’re just getting started.

Why the Left Doesn't Care about Bad Economic News

Townhall ^ | 05/13/2014 | Dennis Prager
Most conservatives, and just about all independents, have a huge misperception of the left. They think that the gulf between conservatism and leftism is primarily about means, not goals. This perception is wrong. It is their goals that are irreconcilable. And until conservatives, independents and the Republican Party understand this, it will not be possible to defeat the left. Take economic indicators. Most conservatives talk and act as if bad economic news disturbs the left as much as it disturbs them. It doesn't. Almost everywhere the left is in control -- in California, for example -- the economic news is awful. But this has no effect on the ruling Democrats, the Los Angeles Times editorial page, New York Times economics columnist Paul Krugman or others on the left. There is one overriding philosophical reason and one political reason for this. But before I identify them, permit me to note some of the economic facts of life in California. Unless otherwise noted, the following data have been culled by Chapman University Professor Joel Kotkin, and published in the Wall Street Journal, the Orange County Register and elsewhere. (For the record, Kotkin is a self-described "Truman Democrat" who voted for the Democrat governor Jerry Brown of California.) --In the last 20 years, about 4 million more people have left California than came in from other states. Most of those leaving are young families. --In the last 15 years, one-third of California's industrial employment base has disappeared. That's 600,000 jobs that have disappeared. --California has the 48th-worst business tax climate. (The Tax Foundation) --California's electricity prices are 50 percent higher than the national average. --Middle-class workers, those who earn more than $48,000, pay a top income tax rate of 9.3 percent. That's higher than what millionaires pay in 47 other states. --California's unemployment rate is fourth highest in the nation. --From 2010-13, California produced fewer than 8,000 jobs, while the country added 510,000. California faces enormous underfunded public employee pension obligations. (Bloomberg) --An estimated 25 billion barrels of oil are sitting untapped in the Monterey and Bakersfield shale deposits. California is therefore sending billions of dollars to Texas, Canada and elsewhere to buy natural gas and oil that it could have produced itself. --Twitter, Adobe, eBay and Oracle, among other major California tech companies, have moved many operations to Salt Lake City. --Hollywood is doing more and more of its filming in Louisiana, Canada and elsewhere to avoid California taxes. --Toyota just announced that it is moving its U.S. headquarters from Los Angeles to Dallas. This will eliminate 3,000 or more generally high-wage jobs. --Occidental Petroleum recently announced that it is moving its headquarters from Los Angeles to Houston. --Until relatively recently, half of the country's top 10 energy firms -- ARCO, Getty Oil, Union Oil, Occidental and Chevron -- were based in California. Today, only Chevron remains, and it is gradually relocating in Houston. (Reuters) --Houston has added nine million square feet of new office space. Los Angeles has added one million. --Tesla will likely locate its proposed $5 billion battery factory, which would employ upward of 6,500 people, in Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico or Texas. According to greentechmedia.com, California "didn't make the short list because of the potential for regulatory and environmental delays." --California's Monterey Shale offers a potential employment bonanza for workers needing access to entry-level jobs in the high-paying energy sector. But California's green lobby is striving to deny them that opportunity. (John Husing, chief economist of the Inland Empire Economic Partnership, Los Angeles Daily News) Now back to our riddle. Why do these state-crushing economic statistics -- nearly every one of which is the result of left-wing policies -- have no effect on California's Democrats, the Los Angeles Times editorial page, New York Times economics columnist Paul Krugman or almost anyone else on the left? The answer is that they don't care. Yes, of course, as individuals with a heart, most people, right and left, care about people losing their jobs. But in terms of what matters to the left and the policies they pursue, they don't care. The left and the political party it controls do not care if their policies force to companies to leave the state (or the country). They don't care about the coming high inflation caused by Quantitative Easing (printing money) -- Krugman calls it The Inflation Obsession -- or the job-depressing effects of high taxes, or energy prices that hurt the middle class, or compelling businesses to leave. They don't care because the left is not interested in prosperity; the left is interested in inequality and in the environment. Furthermore, the worse the economic situation, the more voters are likely to vote Democrat. The worse the economic situation, the greater the number of people receiving government assistance; the greater the number of people receiving government assistance, the greater the number of people who will vote Democrat. Therefore, both philosophically and politically, the left has no reason to be troubled by bad economic news. And it isn't. It is troubled by inequality and carbon emissions.

Jesse Watters Confronts Democrat Congressmen

This week, O'Reilly Factor correspondent Jesse Watters caught up with two Democratic Congressmen whose inflammatory remarks have drawn attention in recent weeks.
One was Watters' own Representative, Steve Israel, from Long Island, New York.
Watters made note of his constituency when he confronted Israel in a House office building.
"You said that the Republican base was animated by racism--can you explain that?" Watters asked as the Democrat waited for an elevator.
"Well, you are picking up on something that was out of context, and happened three weeks ago, so I question why you would even ask that," a visibly irritated Israel smirked.
"Who cares what people think, we need to engage in action; pass a comprehensive immigration bill," he later continued.
Israel contested that he had not referred to Republicans as 'racist'.
"You said the Republican base was animated by racism," Watters replied, "Congressman, I pay your salary, answer the question, you're a public official," he said, as Israel entered the elevator.
Israel then accused Watters of "literally stopping [him] from voting" by standing in the elevator threshold.
"And that's what my constituents pay me to do," Israel said.

Watters later met Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), and asked him about comments he made referring to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas as an 'Uncle Tom'.
"That's pretty disrespectful," Watters said.
"I've looked at a lot of his decisions, and the people I represent had a real problem with his lack of sensitivity," Thompson said.
"I disagree with his opinion as it relates to people of color," he continued.
Watters then asked Thompson about remarks the Congressman made alleging political opposition to President Barack Obama being rooted in racism.
"When you look at the demographics of a district like mine, where a majority of the people are African-American, who stand to benefit, there are problems," Thompson said, "President Obama's policies have historically addressed many of those needs."
Watters then cited the record poverty and unemployment felt by many in the African-American community.
"Blacks have not suffered under his administration, unemployment's lower than it's been in years," Thompson disagreed.
As the Congressman began to walk away, Watters asked the Jackson-area Democrat why he had decided against repeated invites to appear on the O'Reilly Factor to discuss his remarks, as Thompson had on another network."Well, I choose who I talk to, and I talked to you," he said.

Dear Chairman Gowdy -- America is counting on your backbone!

Renew America ^ | May 12, 2014 | By Joan Swirsky
To: Chairman Trey Gowdy and the Select Committee on Benghazi Your investigation is a huge relief to millions of Americans like me who have wondered and agonized over the past almost-two years about the actual events that happened before, during, and after the September 11, 2012, attack in Benghazi, Libya, that resulted in the horrific murders of Ambassador Christopher Stevens, information officer Sean Smith, and embassy security personnel and former Navy SEALs Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods. Another State Department employee, diplomatic security agent David Ubben, was gravely injured while under attack with Woods and Doherty, but like other survivors he has been forbidden by the Obama Administration from speaking publicly about his ordeal. However, as reported by Catherine Herridge of Fox News, when the late Florida Congressman Bill Young met Ubben at Walter Reed Medical Center last summer, he said that Ubben "emphasized the fact" that the attack on the Benghazi compound "was a very very military type of operation...they had knowledge of almost everything in the compound...they knew where the gasoline was, they knew where the generators were, they knew where the safe room was, they knew more than they should have about that compound."

Ted Cruz’s 10 Questions on Benghazi

TheBlaze ^ | Pete Kasperowicz
Senate Democrats on Monday blocked a request from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to approve a resolution supporting the creation of a select committee to investigate Benghazi.Cruz took to the Senate floor just days after the House approved its own select committee, and said the Senate needs to support a committee because the Obama administration has still failed to answer 10 key questions about the 2012 attack against the U.S. consulate. Cruz also said that while Democrats claim the Obama administration will not rest until the attackers are brought to justice, there has not been any apparent progress.“Here we are eight months later,” he said. “The perpetrators still have not been caught and the confusion about what occurred on September 11, 2012, in Benghazi has only gotten worse.”After listing out his unanswered questions, Cruz asked for unanimous consent that the Senate immediately pass the resolution. But Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) blocked it and said the request was politically motivated.“This request is, in my view, without merit,” Menendez said. “It’s an effort to follow the footsteps of the unfortunate, politically motivated creation of just such a special committee by the House of Representatives just in time for mid-term elections.”Cruz disputed Menendez’s claim that his request was political, and said Democrats opposed his request for a select committee on Benghazi 18 months ago, well before the 2014 mid-term elections.Menendez then argued that some of Cruz’s unanswered questions are political in nature, such as whether President Barack Obama slept the night of the attack that left four Americans dead. Menendez said a better question might be whether Obama was even told about the attack that night.

“I don’t know,” Menendez said. “The bottom line is… would that have saved anyone. I don’t know that either.”Cruz pounced on that statement as an example of why a select committee is needed.“The Democratic senator from New Jersey, the chairman of the Foreign Relations COmmittee, just told this body that he has no idea if President Obama was even told four Americans were under terrorist attack,” Cruz said. “He doesn’t know what if anything the President could have done to save them.“I would suggest that’s exactly the reason we need this committee.”Menendez said the Senate would be better served passing a bill to boost funding for embassy security. But when Cruz said he would support that bill if Menendez stopped blocking the Benghazi resolution, Menendez indicated that he would not make such a trade because the committee would be political in nature.Below are Cruz’s 10 questions that he said need to be answered by further investigation into the Benghazi attack, and the Obama administration’s handling of that attack:1) Why was the State Department unwilling to provide the requested level of security to Benghazi in the summer of 2012?2) Do President Obama’s daily intelligence briefings in the run-up to September 11, 2012, support the assertion that there was no credible threat of a coordinated terrorist attack on Benghazi during the time? And do the daily intelligence briefings following that date support the claim the administration made that the cause was an Internet video? And why hasn’t the White House declassified and released those briefings, just like President George W. Bush did with his pre-September 11, 2001 briefings?3) Why did we not anticipate the need to have military assets at the ready in the region on the anniversary of September 11, of all days?4) Did President Obama sleep the night of September 11, 2012? Did Secretary Clinton? Neither has answered that very simple question — were they awake or asleep while Americans were under fire? When was President Obama told about the murder of our Ambassador?5) If the Secretary of Defense thought there was “no question that this was a coordinated attack,” why did Ambassador Susan Rice, Secretary Clinton and President Obama all tell the American people that the cause was a spontaneous demonstration about an Internet video?6) Why did former deputy CIA Director Mike Morrell edit the intelligence community talking points to delete the references to Islamic extremists and Al Qaeda?7) Why did the FBI not release pictures of the militants taken the day of the attack until eight months after the fact? Why not immediately, as proved so effective in the Boston bombing?8) Why was Secretary Clinton not interviewed for the A.R.B. [Accountability Review Board] report? And if all the relevant questions were answered in the A.R.B. report… why did the State Department’s own Inspector General office open a probe into the methods of that very report?9) Why have none of the terrorists who attacked in Benghazi been captured or killed?10) What additional evidence that the White House engaged in a partisan political campaign to blame the Benghazi attack on the Internet video is contained in the additional emails requested by Judicial Watch but withheld by the White House on the grounds that it would put a “chill on internal deliberations?”

Up to 26% increase in health-plan rates proposed by insurers!

The Seattle Times ^ | 5/12/2014 | Carol M. Ostrom
Up to 26% increase in health-plan rates proposed by insurers Proposed rate changes for 2015 individual health plans are all over the map, but most companies are keeping up with tradition by requesting increases in premiums. If approved, rate increases for 2015 individual health plans proposed by 12 insurance companies may affect most policyholders, whether they bought their plans through Washington Healthplanfinder’s online marketplace or in the outside market. Washington is one of the first states to see proposed rate changes for 2015 individual health-insurance plans. The proposed rate changes range from a decrease of 6.8 percent — from Molina Healthcare of Washington — to an increase of 26 percent from Time Insurance, a national company with relatively few Washington policyholders.

Benghazi Commission: The End Of Hillary Clinton’s Political Career!

Story Leak blog ^ | May 11, 2014 | Michael Thomas
There are very ‘good’ reasons why the House Democrats are making threats of boycotting the recently approved commission on the Benghazi attack. All of them know that President Obama and the Secretary of State at the time, Hillary Clinton, did not properly discharge their duties during the attack. “Unforeseen consequences” and “unpredictable twists and turns” had nothing to do with her failure to secure the compound or to send adequate security to protect it. Rather, she got every sort of warning from her own ambassador, the State Department, the CIA and the Defense Department. She just failed to act on them.”[1] . Four Americans may have died needlessly including John Christopher Stevens, an American diplomat and lawyer who served as the U.S. Ambassador to Libya from June 2012 to September 12, 2012. His death was not only a humiliating defeat for the USA, it was a violent spectacle which most Americans do not understand how it could have happened. Happen it did on Hillary Clinton’s watch, a prospective presidential candidate who just could become the Commander-in Chief. Her reaction to cross examination during the first Senate inquiry by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) is perhaps the best evidence that something very wrong happened during that fateful evening of September 11, 2012. Her behavior does not seem to be demonstrative of a future leader of the US Armed Forces. The following YouTube video captures the heart of her testimony which will surely come back to haunt her for years to come.(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Anyone watching this video can easily see the dissembling and evasion by which Secretary Clinton answered the questions put forth to her. Many of her former Senate colleagues were mortified by her conduct in light of the seriousness of the investigation. The Republican side is now fully aware that evidence exists which will incriminate Ms. Clinton in the mishandling of the whole affair. And that the ensuing cover-up is always what does the most political damage. The Benghazi debacle is much more serious than the media has reported. Time does have a way of revealing the truth of the matter, and the slow drip of Benghazi revelations will only increase until the midterm elections. Because Ms. Clinton has not come clean since the very beginning, she now sits in a very awkward and vulnerable position. How so? Any political pundit would objectively observe that Ms. Clinton, based on all the information that is available in the public domain, appears to be guilty of criminal neglect in her capacity of Secretary of State. That verdict is based on the fact that the predicament was allowed to occur in the first place. Simply put, a US Ambassador’s many solicitations for protection were ignored by his boss in DC. “When you read the various pieces and bits of information she received in the weeks and months prior to the attack, it is hard to see how they could have been any more blunt or explicit in warning of the likelihood of future terror attacks in Benghazi.”[1] . And that is the best case scenario for Secretary Clinton. The worst case is where she and her office ignored every plea for help up to and including the night of the attack on the American diplomatic mission at Benghazi, in Libya. Someone going even so far as to order available units to stand down makes this situation even worse. Of course, the cover-up is where things have really gotten messy for Secretary Clinton. Which is why her Republican inquisitors are so determined to get to the bottom of things. They can only tolerate so much obfuscation, non-compliance and irresponsible behavior on the part of the White House before the American people start to call them on it. The longer this whole sordid affair drags on, the worse it’s going to be for everyone involved in the Obama Adminstration, especially Hillary Clinton. Benghazi Hearing Promises to be Clinton’s Political Waterloo As an aspiring presidential nominee, candidate Clinton will necessarily be held up to a much higher standard than she has been in her previous roles. Her stint at State is the only one she can point to as demonstrating her abilities to handle foreign affairs. In light of President Obama’s string of foreign affair fiascos, she will be hard-pressed to bring the necessary gravitas to the role of president in this particular regard. Even for diehard Democrats, there is the distinct sentiment that Ms Clinton is not up to the task. Her responses to so many challenges, both personal and political, over the years reveal a woman who is often petty, vindictive and unaccountable. Truly, her place in the White House is as an ex First Lady who gave it her best. “For Clinton now to say that she did the best she could on the basis of “imperfect information” and to blame the tragic outcome on “unforeseen consequences and unpredictable twists and turns” is such an act of distortion of the record that it takes one’s breath away.”[1] . Ms. Clinton ought to look at the Benghazi hearing as an opportunity to listen to the many reasons she should not even consider running for president. Undoubtedly, she will hear things that will embarrass her and her office at State. Truly, so many things happened that should not have under her watch. Just as many things did not occur in Benghazi that should have for the protection of four Americans who died. Things have made much worse by the White House response. Subsequent attempts to acquire pertinent correspondence from the White House about the Benghazi attack and US Government response have been met with continual stonewalling and denial. The Press Secretary has lost all credibility with the both the Press Corp and the public. The key players have only acted in a way which would lead those investigating this serious matter that a full scale cover-up has been operative since day one. At the end of the day, both Secretary Clinton and President Obama will be held directly responsible for this cover-up, as well as the obvious negligence up to and including the attacks. Each ought to be held accountable for their actions by the Congress and the Mainstream Media (MSM). Unfortunately the MSM has both supported Secretary Clinton’s narrative and enabled her reprehensible conduct at every turn. However, with the midterm elections around the corner pointing to a GOP landslide, the political chessboard is about to be rearranged in a way that will not bode well for Candidate Clinton. The US electorate is not so clueless that they would elect a nominee who has baggage of this serious nature. Truly, the whole Benghazi affair does not reflect well on anyone in the Obama Administration, especially the Secretary of State. The question remains: Does Hillary Clinton understand that the powers that be are using the Benghazi Commission to send her a message? Perhaps she will get it before her first answers are rendered before a congressional inquiry that promises to be bigger and badder than Watergate. How do you spell C O V E R – U P ? Benghazigate — here we come! Michael Thomas May 10, 2014 StateoftheNation2012.com Author’s Note: When the New York Times publishes an article that goes by the title: Forget Benghazi. Clinton’s Real Problem Is Obama Fatigue., you know that Hillary Clinton has some problems – real problems. The MSM knows just how hard they have had to work to cover for the Obama Administration. The truth be told, the MSM has carried more water for Obama and his appointees than any other administration in US history. That has to be exhausting when there is so darn much to cover up on a daily basis. Alternative News Alert: There is much evidence that indicates a backstory to the Benghazi disaster which would explain so much equivocation on the part of the White House and Secretary Clinton. It revolves around the fact “that the CIA was shipping arms from U.S.-controlled facilities located at the U.S. mission in Benghazi to its mercenaries in Syria and the murder of ambassador Stevens was carried out by an al-Qaeda affiliated group as part of a turf war between the CIA and elements in the Pentagon.” More can be read at the following link: Confirmed: Benghazi was Cover-up of Arms Transfer to al-Qaeda.